Back to 1999-2000. While I'm mostly relying on photos along with a few diary entries, I also have precious memories of wonderful people and friends.
For me, decisions have always been hard ... and often very painful. Along with the struggles and hard things, the points of yielding were not easy. All the points of pulling back and letting go were accomplished because of who God is and how He showed His goodness in each event. Each event was a love gift. And, of course, they are now behind me..... But the years of 1999-2000 gave me more in the furnace of transformation that went deep into my soul.
The decision to do or not to do things is hard for me. It always has been. So what made this year so hard? Much of it centered around my work with the schools, teachers and kids, and one in particular: Chauncey Elementary School. Many times I struggled with the decision to go on directing this wonderful work, or leave this pressures and furnace of transformation. On the one hand, we were very successful in what we were doing. On the other hand, we became the target for much criticism. If felt all targeted toward me, though I realize now it was not. But here's what I learned during this time: I don't need to be relevant, spectacular or powerful. He is so much more and I have everything that I need in Him.
Here I was challenged on so many fronts. Ours was a literacy partnership, which had been in my heart for years. I loved putting this together but it meant our OU students had to take extra courses in reading assessment and remediation. They came away with a reading endorsement so they could help children they teach become better readers and writers. It gave them an edge in getting jobs and we always seemed to get outstanding students who applied to be part of our partnership.
But there was much conflict was around the partnership, with Chauncey and with my collaboration with dearly loved Laura Frederiksen, my friend, and Chauncey's first grade teacher, school coordinator, and liaison to OU. She was an outstanding friend and leader. One one day Laura, who was not a follower of Jesus, had come to my house for lunch and to plan for a conference we were going to speak at about our partnership. At lunch, I prayed and thanked God for "the work You've given us to do." As Laura was leaving, she said most sincerely, "I like that, "the work you've given us to do." And it truly was the work He gave us to do together for almost 10 years before she died of liver cancer.
During the pressures it became clear that I was too self-focused, considering myself instead of seeing things from Father's perspective. Our friend Paul Petrie teaches that we must view circumstances through the lens of God's goodness and not God's goodness through the circumstances. See God first and the rest will become clearer. But you will see how selfish I was (still am), as I sought to find a way through what felt like an island of loneliness. I found the Lord taking me to the Cross, rearranging, stripping, tearing, emptying all that I hoped for in this life. I felt so empty, so much like my insides were being removed, shaken and redistributed so I no longer knew anything of who I am apart from His daughter.
The furnace felt like emptiness with all being burned away. My journal that year kept using the words "stripped" and "empty" over and over," and the Lord said to give thanks in the darkness and weariness, that He was good and would complete His good work.
Below are a few excerpts from my personal prayer journal during this year.
9/27: When all around me gives way...when all those who made commitments to me to work together, fail....when there is more to do than can humanly be done----I will praise your Name. It is enough. You are good and I will wait for You. You are the first and last, the living One, the One who was dead and is alive forever, the One who holds the keys to death and Hades. I worship you.
10/8: Oh, Lord, it is a time of yielding up my desires here in Athens for friends, for colleagues without spite, for a job that is fun and rewarding, for a church home and Bible study group that is encouraging, nourishing, and worshipful--for my limited understanding of doing Your will. I don't see blessing on anything outward we're doing, and see only my areas of weakness and failure. I give thanks for your gifts of Bill, Jenny, Dow and Lois. I ask for and choose life--to be content without the above, to stop looking for these and be content with Your love and what You've already given me to do. May all I do be intertwined with worship and rest, content with Your Love.
During this time, Bill and I began our rest-aways to Amish country, disconnected from phones, TVs and computers--something we try to do regularly now. And then winter came with beautiful white, clean snow. It washed the countryside and my weary soul. During these years, and many more to come, we found friendship, fellowship and community with the people at the Lancaster Covenant church. I wrote in my journal how grateful I was for "the love of Dennis and Dee Coll and Frank and Millie Dawson, for how they shared God's Presence in worship." And now Frank and Millie's only daughter, Tacee Puttick, is one of my close friends living right here in Columbus!
During this year Bill continued deep in the midst of his PhD program in computer science at Ohio State. And he experienced some pretty severe depression. He was put on medication that made him become a different person--so happy he was hard to live with! He finally went off it and I gratefully got my Bill back. His happiness now was real, but different than the medicated kind.
There are also so many good things that happened this year, so many treasured friends, that I'll save much of it for the next photo journal blog entry. But one of the best trips we made during this year was to visit our daughter doing an internship in Paris, and then drive up to have time with dear friends Paul and Rebecca Petrie, in Genval, Belgium. There's a beautiful lake out the window to the left.
Our times together were always full of love and encouragement on our journeys in the Lord. We didn't know that a year later Rebecca would fall down their stairs and have her life dramatically changed. You can read about this in the book we later helped her write and edit: Falling into His Grace: the Power of a Life Laid Down
